Long Beach community activist Autrilla Scott dies

LONG BEACH — She was a small woman with a huge heart and, if provoked, a feisty nature.

On Sunday across Long Beach, community members were mourning the death of Autrilla Scott, one of the city's leading community activists.

Scott died in her sleep Sunday morning after a long illness. She was 82.

Miss Autrilla, as she was known throughout the Central Long Beach neighborhood, was best known nationally as a babysitter and nanny of former President Bill Clinton during his toddler days in Hope, Ark.

In Long Beach her most visible legacy is the paved alleyway, Autrilla Scott Lane, that bears her name.

But it was also the little things, the thousands of small ways that she helped the community that collectively made the small woman so large in stature in the Central Area and throughout Long Beach.

"To me she was a pioneer and a trailblazer in black history," said 6 th District City Councilman Dee Andrews. "She tried to lift the spirit and knowledge of black people.

"I can truly remember her as a person who made a difference."

Stella Davis, who described Scott as her best friend, remembers meeting Scott through Autrilla's husband, Olen.

"She was sitting on the porch and I said, 'You need to get up and do something,'" Davis said.

Once Scott got up, she didn't sit back down and became a whir of activity who rarely rested. With Davis' help, she set up a neighborhood watch in the community. Then it was on to countless other projects.

Scott's daughter, Sharon McLucas, who sells advertising for the Press-Telegram, said the family is compiling a list of Scott's affiliations and awards, commendations and citations. The list had already reached eight pages, and seems to grow with each person they talk to, she said.

Former Vice Mayor Doris Topsy-Elvord remembers that whenever she wanted help with a project she could count on Scott.

"She was a tireless community activist," Topsy-Elvord said.

Scott would write grants for tree plantings, for cleanups, to landscape around a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. at a local park and many other projects. She'd host Neighborhood Watch celebrations and holiday events for children.

She was active in the census, voter registration, senior health and many other race and class issues. She spoke, attended or helped organize events for Black History Month, Kwanzaa and the NAACP. It seemed Scott was forever involved in a new cause or issue.

The walls of her house were covered with awards and recognitions, along with photographs of Scott with dignitaries she met through the years. Countless other commendations and citations were tucked away.

Davis said she and Scott would sometimes visit and jokingly compare their accomplishments.

"She told me we were tit for tat," Davis said. "I'd say, 'You have more (awards),' and she'd say 'No, Stella, you have more.'"

Part of the joke was that it was never about those things; they were merely check marks in their life books of activism.

Scott gained unexpected acclaim for being Clinton's former babysitter.

Topsy-Elvord said when Clinton was scheduled to travel to Long Beach, she heard for the first time that Scott had been a house cleaner for Clinton's stepfather, Roger, and baby-sat the toddler who would become president.

After that, Topsy-Elvord recalls Clinton's handlers had to pull him away from Scott.

Later when she would talk about the president, Scott said for many years she didn't publicly tell the story about her relationship with Clinton because she didn't think she'd be believed.

Scott met with Clinton several other times when the president came to Southern California.

One of Scott's enduring legacies is the organizing efforts she undertook to pave weed-infested alleys in the Central Area. At the time Scott began advocating for the improvements, the city required homeowners to pay for the service and maintain the alleys. In poorer neighborhoods, this was not an option.

For 30 years, Scott reminded the council of the plight not just in the alley behind her house, but throughout the 6 th District.

"She was very persistent," Topsy-Elvord said. "She might have been soft-spoken, but she never gave up."

Eventually, Scott was awarded redevelopment funds to pay for the work on the alley behind her house, and later about $1 million in RDA funds were spent to rehab alleys throughout the district.

In recognition of her efforts, the alley was officially named Autrilla Scott Lane, and Scott became known to some as "the Alley Lady." She liked to tell people that she was the only living African-American or African-American woman in Long Beach to have a street named after her.

It is fitting and symbolic that Autrilla Scott Lane and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue intersect and will in their way be forever linked, even though the two never met.

Scott was born in 1930 and grew up in the segregated South, which always informed her opinions on race, justice and equality. She moved to Long Beach in 1955.

To leave a legacy for children and her family, Scott wrote two memoirs, "I Remember When," and "Stories from the Past," plus countless poems about race and identity.

It was the thousands of small acts of volunteerism that helped define her.

"She used to say, 'I'm sure glad my husband ran across Stella or I'd still be sitting on that porch,'" Davis said.